Okay, Steyn, that’s enough Cameroonian rolling news updates: what’s your point? Only this. Ever since Commissar Lynch decided to insert herself into my life, I’ve made it my job to keep at least as extensive a file on Jennifer as her organization keeps on those Canadian citizens of whom it disapproves. And I was struck by the chief commissar’s introductory remarks at last October’s “Discrimination Prevention Forum” in Ottawa:

“From year to year, we generate more interest in the global human rights community. I extend a warm welcome to our distinguished international guests, Mr. Divine Chemuta Banda, Chief Commissioner of the Cameroon National Human Rights and Freedom Commission, and Mr. Moise Segue, also from the Cameroon Commission. We are pleased to have with us Mr. Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages, and Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall, from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to our gathering.”

What’s so “distinguished” about the Cameroon Human Rights Commissioner? Cameroon has an appalling human rights record. Freedom House ranks the country not merely as “not free,” but as one of the 20 worst nations on earth for political rights and civil liberties, down there at the bottom of the barrel with Burma, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea and Sudan. Why weren’t they among the “distinguished guests” at Commissar Lynch’s “Discrimination Prevention Forum”? Not enough Air Canada frequent-flyer miles?

If you schmooze enough Third World thug states, it’s not surprising your postmodern cultural relativism starts to drift past the point of no return. As Commissar Lynch primly notes in her report, America’s First Amendment absolutism on free speech is out of step with the “growing global consensus”—that would be the “growing global consensus” represented by the CHRC and its “distinguished guests.” Take Sweden and Cameroon, split the difference, and that should be enough human rights for anyone.

Meanwhile, the fine fellow who runs the Freedom Through Truth site has this to say when it comes to the business of making Lynch-mocking t-shirts:

I have no problem with speaking out against Jennifer Lynch and others in the HRCs for what they say and do that is unfair. But, there is a balance between humour, and satire in the midst of political commentary which someone like Ezra does very well, and name calling and outdoing each other with t-shirt slogans that goes beyond the job to demean the person. Slam the job. Slam the job the person is doing, but respect the dignity of the person.

Jennifer Lynch is a creation of God as much as you or I are, and as such is as loved by Him/Her as you or I are, and as deserving of that love as you or I are. We cannot earn God’s love. It is as free a gift as salvation.

There is significant evidence that the HRCs of our country are not treating the people who reside in this country with equanimity, that there is a hierarchy of rights, regardless of what they say to the contrary. Bring it out into the open, logically, passionately even, with humour, satire, and invite discourse. When people lie, point it out. When they say stupid things, point that out. But, it is not fair to disparage their character and tie that to the job they are doing.

And finally, I’ll leave off with some comments from the inestimable Binks:

IN MOVIE or video game plots, once the hero gets entangled with the outer minions, then there’s the really bad guys of the inner circle, then there’s the ultimate bad guy, and the climax of the show.

We’ve had the permed minion on CTV and the pudgy minion at the parliamentary hearings, but now they’ve finally got the Alien Queen out of her nest head woman out actually speaking for her organization.

Clearly, they’re just not paying her enough– after all, she’s a hugely talented constitutional expert, PR professional, world traveller, psychologist; Internet fact-checker/ blog analyst; evil hater spotter; media spokeswoman; indeed, there seems to be no skill or area in which the supremely multi-talented Queen of the Canucki Inhuman Unrights Communism does not apparently possess.

I heard her school-marmish voice– for the first time in all of this– hector a studiously impartial Roy Green on CHQR last Saturday. Classy. She’s clearly fighting for her administrative life and reputation– you can hear it in her voice, more than the pat answers. Sadly, though she has come out fighting, it’s making things worse. The dogpile is all over the web, and the best words have been said, so it’s a few things she’s said that get my attention.

(1) 1200 items in her secret file? Spending your expensive time at home and work reading this and other similar blogs? Mrs. Lynch, early retirement may be an option, before you utterly implode yourself, and end up a sad joke.

(2) She still doesn’t get it: there’s justice; there’s HRC approved procedures, then there’s the law and real legal practice. Denial of a mess just looks stupid. I’ve been in situations like this, and the best thing to do is just apologize, fire some of the guilty, change policy, and take your lumps.

(3) Finally, Ms. Lynch keeps repeating that she runs an ‘independent agency’ accountable to Parliament. Duh. Since the Canadian Government is not financially self-sufficient, most of her personal income and the $200 mil I understand is floating around across Canada to fund these committees comes from us. Taxpayers. And we elect or unelect Parliament. What Ms. Lynch– with her business model– misunderstands is that she’s theoretically working for us, according to our good will and pleasure, if at one remove.

(4) Therefore, her apparent contempt at the little people nipping at her royal heels reveals a possibly serious misunderstanding: she’s not a lofty CEO/ Founder, nor a bureaucratic royal, no matter how she and her staff and minions and PR flacks seem to operate.

As anyone with authority can tell you, when it’s on your watch, it’s your fault, and your glory.

Mrs. Lynch needs a sideways promotion to some other plum posting, with this blotch on her permanent record: that she received a corrupt and overweening institution and did not immediately start cleaning house, nor– on her watch– did she do the usual bureaucratic moves to get the government to help her rectify the mess. Then, when she had public and political opinion on the side of reform and repair of the mess, she battened down the hatches instead of using that gift of free momentum to make it better, and to try and rebuild an institution that is full of good intentions, but which has been used and abused and allowed to grow out of real control. Warman and company are the symptoms: denial and school-marmishness is not the cure.

If Ms. Lynch wants to post a response after collecting this piddly essay from this middling blog by this ‘little person’ into her ‘Special File/Enemies List’, I will gladly post it unabridged, unedited.

As I wrote sincerely about Warren Kinsella during his recent illness, I’m praying for Jennifer Lynch, and hoping that she can ‘get it’, and come around to be a reformer, and not a person who makes Canada a worse place for her having been a public servant. ~

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3 Responses to Today’s Lynch Round-Up

Walker:
You have captured one of my calmer comments well in your blog. Thanks for the link, and keep on going.

I intend to write soon about a strategy that I see the Lynch Mob, or the Group of 13 or how many HRCs there are in this country running with to battle their adversaries, and it needs to be countered.

It is a strategy of obfuscation (evasiveness and confusion), by planting FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). This was a strategy of the major computer companies in the early 70’s to make companies buy their products against their competitors and particularly against inertia. This strategy worked 40 years ago, but with the internet and access to information now, can be blocked.

Ezra Levant has documented his strategy of denormalization of the HRCs to bring them to a place where they lose their mystique. Your blog and others are all a part of that strategy.

I’d like to address another on of the unfair criticisms that’s gotten some play, and appears in this post–the stuff relating to Cameroon.

Cameroon does, by all counts, have a terrible human rights record. In fact, Canada work with lawyers and with the government of Cameroon in an effort to improve the system of legal redress for human rights violations. One presumes that the two officials were there in that capacity.

Just because Cameroon has a bad human rights record does not mean every Cameroonian, or even every Cameroonian government official, is evil and corrupt. Some might be. From what I can tell, this Divine Chemuta Banda seems to be an advisor to the government, and has been willing to speak out against human rights abuses in the country. I suspect that’s a pretty difficult task, and I admire that Canada is making an effort to lend legitimacy to that function.

So, the Cameroonians show up at a CHRC event, in the spirit of international cooperation on human rights abuses. Jennifer Lynch says exactly the following about them: “I extend a warm welcome to our distinguished international guests, Mr. Divine Chemuta Banda, Chief Commissioner of the Cameroon National Human Rights and Freedom Commission, and Mr. Moise Segue, also from the Cameroon Commission.”

Now, what exactly is the issue? She welcomed a foreign official “warmly”? She called them “distinguished”? How would you have her deal with it? Snub them? Insult them?

I suppose she could have taken the occasion to criticize Cameroon for its human rights abuses. That’s inconsistent with every tenet of international diplomacy, but it’s possible. Still, that would have made a pretty poor introduction to a speech. I’ve been to speeches, and it seems to me that guests get welcomed without an accompanying geopolitical analysis.

So what exactly is the basis for the allegation that she “shmoozes Third World thugs?”

I find this to be another grasping-at-straws example of literally trying to turn every word out of her mouth into a basis for attack on her. Which i find to be petty and distracting.

Kevin. My sympathy to the people of Cameroon for what they have to suffer through. It is surly a very hard life for those living there. Why would anyone want to compound their problems by adding anything from the horror that is the Canadian human rights laws to the problems they already have?

Evolution

Like virtually all other virtual things, The Lynch Mob is a not a static object. In fact, one of the earliest things to change was the name itself. This site started out as The Lynch Files - a couple of days later it was called The Lynch Mob. Same blog, different name. During a sabbatical taken by founder Walker Morrow, others stepped up to keep the blog running and continue to hold the feet of CHRC commissioner Jennifer Lynch - and all her provincial counterparts - to the fire.